


tell it to the ghosts

by dorenamryn



Series: Cloak And Dagger [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 12:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12935721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorenamryn/pseuds/dorenamryn
Summary: In which Leia attends her first session at the Senate and sees something in a place long since abandoned.





	tell it to the ghosts

The first time Leia went to the Senate with her father, she was twelve years old. Apart from the regular Senate, however, there was alsoan important meeting that had something to do with Alderaan’s exports. The Alderaanian embassy, where Bail normally resided, was so full of people that Bail and Leia instead had no choice but to stay at Bail’s apartment in the 500 Republica. 

Leia was excited. The 500 Republica was only where the most important people stayed. Bail had even said that Senator Amidala had had an apartment in the upper levels. That, Leia was desperate to see. It was abandoned, that she also knew, just sitting there, empty, waiting for Leia to go and look. She could break in very simply, for Leia had always had a special gift for mechanics, lock mechanisms included. Besides, she’d snuck out of the royal palace on Alderaan plenty of times, so how hard could it really be to get into the abandoned suite of a dead senator?

Before she could do anything, though, she had to go and attend the day’s senate session with her father. Leia, contrary to popular belief, was not the best at politics. She was too restless, too fiery. She wasn’t a negotiator, nor was she a lady. She took apart landspeeders and wore pants and studied battle tactics and snuck out of the palace using a stolen starfighter. No, she was not fit for the position of a senator, she was far more suited to stand at the head of an army, a fleet of starships beneath her fingertips, a fire as bright as the twin suns of Tatooine blazing in her eyes.

However, Bail and Breha Organa didn’t understand that, and perhaps they never would. To them, Leia was her mother’s daughter (a fact of which, of course, Leia wasn’t aware of). It was quite ironic, really, as practically everyone else saw her as she really was; fierce, full to the brim with power. In other words, some saw her as a threat, but she needn’t worry. She could take care of herself.

Leia walked behind Bail Organa, surveying the crowd of senators and delegates in the halls, all rushing to their senatorial pods. The session was about to begin.

“Ah, Bail,” greeted a familiar voice. Leia leaned slightly to get a better view of the short-haired woman, her gaze sharp with recognition, as the woman before her was none other than Senator Mothma of Chandrilla. 

“Mon,” nodded Bail respectfully. “I see you are in good health.”

“Yes, of course,” replied the senator, suddenly catching sight of Leia. “You brought Leia here! How wonderful. Her very first session in the senate, an experience, I must say.”

“Truly,” said Bail, gracing her with a warm smile. “Say hello, Leia.”

“Hello, Senator Mothma,” said Leia, a false grin dancing on her lips. Why was it that whenever Bail was with one of his colleagues she sensed that they were all keeping something from her? Mothma, she felt was more cautious than most. Leia knew that the woman was one of her father's closest colleagues, but what were the two of them hiding? It was almost as if Mothma was _scared_ of her.

“It’s amazing to be on Coruscant,” Leia continued lightly, her voice excited, thoughts safely concealed. “It’s not my first time on Coruscant, but I’m very excited to finally see how a senate session is run. I expect it will be very interesting.”

“You can guarantee that,” smiled Mothma, and despite her kind features Leia could still sense a twinge of what felt to her like fear. “However, the Emperor isn’t here, so the most exciting part will of course not come today.”

Her eyes turned darker as she flicked them back at Bail to continue talking. Leia frowned.

“It was great to see you, Bail,” she said, her voice quieter. “In fact, I’ve gotten some information that could be of use. Come by my office for a cup of tea after the session, would you?”

“Of course,” replied Bail. “Good luck, Senator.”

Mothma nodded, glanced once more at Leia, and disappeared into the throng.

Bail and Leia set off to Alderaan’s pod. She trailed behind her father as he made his way through the seemingly-endless sea of beings. Leia was silent, her eyes calculating, her ears catching snippets of conversation as beings passed by.

“How was your tea this morning?”  
“ _Yes_ , yes, the proposal’s ready.”  
“—Tell my secretary to remind me of that meeting with the Senator from Naboo.”  
“I heard Lord Vader was here. He supposedly landed two nights ago. The—”

She didn’t get to hear the rest of what the man was saying for right then she was ushered into Alderaan’s pod, but, that last thing was interesting. Vader was almost never actually on Coruscant. He was the Emperor’s watchdog, busy wreaking havoc across the galaxy. Ever since she’d first caught that glimpse of him as a child, she’d been determined to crack the enigma that paraded around in a midnight-black cloak and who’s voice supposedly sounded like the devil himself. Fortunately, with the news of Vader, the senate session suddenly got a whole lot less dull.

Well, not really. The Emperor wasn’t there, and neither was Vader, so soon the entire hall had transcended into utter chaos. Senators and delegates threw insults at each other, providing arguments and counter-arguments to why their solutions to the various issues were better. In the comforts of her mind, Leia was screaming in frustration. An invisible wind tore through her head as she teemed with annoyance at the lack of democracy. After three hours of endless bickering between the senators, she tapped her father on the shoulder.

“I’ve got to excuse myself,” she said quietly. “I need a breather.”

Bail nodded and glanced to the guards. Leia inwardly cursed, thinking of ways she could shake off her security detail. She settled on the most classic of getaway tactics: running.

Once she and her guards had left the pod, Leia smiled at them sweetly before throwing a mock salute and sprinting down the hallway.

“Hey! Princess!” She heard from behind, but instead of stopping, she laughed. It was a laugh of freedom, her senses alive and her mind already calculating her next move. Leia turned sharply at the next hallway, dodged past the occasional straggler, and continued. It felt good to run. She felt alive, invigorated, the air rushing past, her heart pounding as she tore through the empty halls of the senate building. 

However, before long, Leia realized that she had strayed farther than she had intended to, for she had absolutely no idea where she was. She stopped, then, to look around. It seemed like she was in some kind of hall. There were numerous paintings hung up on the walls, mainly of people whom Leia assumed were senators. She walked about the room slowly, looking carefully at each one. Most were human, but some of them not. One woman had bright blue skin, Leia noted, and another man had a set of three violet eyes. Each of the paintings were beautiful andcaptivating, some of them almost eerily so. She continued to circle to room in hushed awe; but an indistinct force was pulling her slightly towards the end of it, and as soon as Leia saw the painting of the woman, she knew why. 

The woman portrayed in the portrait was stunning. Her dark hair was done up intricately into braids that were pinned to her head in so many different ways that Leia lost track. She wore a deep red gown, and her eyes were a rich shade of brown, but they were kind, strong. She had an air of elegance about her that Leia could sense even through the painting. She recognized the woman immediately.

Carefully, Leia reached a hand towards the frame, where the name _Senator Amidala_ was carefully engraved into the wood. She’d heard of her, of course, knew where she had lived while on Coruscant, spent countless hours pouring over footage of her speeches that she had forced her father to obtain. Leia spent years studying the many exploits of the illustrious woman, but she’d never seen any proper pictures of her until now. She’d seen holo-footage, yes, hundreds of videos, but she found that none of them captured her beauty like this painting had. Leia reached out to the frame once more, but before her fingers could even sweep the engraving, an invisible force grasped her hand. The room’s temperature suddenly dropped several degrees and a dark presence permeated the air. 

She knew what was happening even before she heard the sound of mechanical breathing behind her. The Force churned, sealed behind her durasteel shields.

Leia didn’t, couldn’t, turn around, for she knew who was standing behind her.

“Lord Vader,” she said politely, albeit surprised at how small her voice sounded. She’d spent equally as much, if not more, time trying to figure out everything she could about the Dark Lord. And yet, even as she faced him, she couldn’t stop her fear.

“Princess Organa,” he stated, his deep, slightly-mechanized voice sounding a tad condescending in her current situation. “What are you doing in this part of the Senate Building?”

“I… um,” she stuttered, cursing at how weak her voice was, “I got… lost?”

It sounded more like a question. Thankfully, Vader didn’t acknowledge it as such. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. She was Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, the daughter of an esteemed senator. Why did Vader make her feel so strange?

“Very well, then,” he replied with finality, “I will guide you back to Alderaan’s senatorial pod. That is where you are supposed to be, correct?”  
  
“Uh, yes,” she said, a little too quickly, her heart pounding wildly in her chest because Darth _kriffing_ Vader was standing right there and—

“Come along, Princess,” she heard him say. She took a step, and then another before she discovered that she could move her hand again. He hadn’t looked back at her, and to Leia, it looked like he might have been a tad annoyed; yet why she got that notion, she had no idea.

The unlikely duo kept walking side by side, and as they walked Leia’s mind set off again. Why had Vader been there, and why had he frozen her hand before it could touch the frame of Senator Amidala’s painting? _It’s because he knew her_ , her treacherous mind whispered. 

“Did you know her? The Senator?” Blurted Leia before she could stop herself, cursing her own recklessness.

“No,” came the reply, clipped and sharp. Revealing. Vader had known the senator, Leia was sure of it. She was about to ask yet another question, but they had arrived at the Alderaanian pod. 

“This is your place, Princess. Do not let me see you wandering where you are not supposed to.”

And then, the tall form of Vader disappeared around a bend in the hallway, his mechanical breathing with him.

Leia went back to the pod and stood beside Bail, unable to shake the mysterious feeling that had flared up during her encounter with Vader. She shuddered, slightly, and fixed her gaze on the current speaker, trying to force Vader from her thoughts, to no avail. She listened quietly while the Senate bickered over this and that, not really paying attention. Lord Vader had known Senator Amidala. How, Leia didn’t know, but she was determined to find out.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the Senate session finally came to a close.

Leia followed her father and their security out of the pod and slowly made their way back out of the senate building, where a speeder waited to take them back to the 500 Republica. Leia’s mind was still in a bit of a haze from the day’s earlier events, so she excused herself from dinner early, letting her father finish up on his own. 

She lay quietly in her chambers with the lights out, pretending to be asleep. She waited until she could no longer see light under her door and no longer hear movement from the hall. Then, she rose; grabbing a few tools and shoving them in a small bag before slinging the bag over her shoulder and carefully opening the door to silently sneak through the apartment. She found the whole sequence of events to feel almost like home.

Once she was out and in front of the elevator, she let out a relieved sigh, pressing a button to call the lift to her.

It arrived and opened swiftly, and then Leia pressed the floor that she knew Amidala’s apartment to be on. She was only in the elevator for a short while, but even then, her excitement began to rise. The lift stopped, the doors opened. Leia stepped out. The Senator’s apartment was at the end of the hallway. It had to be, for it was the only one on this floor.

As she neared the door, she began to sense feelings from the Force, echoes. There was pain, and there was sorrow, but there was also an exuberant happiness, and as Leia walked, the feelings that surrounded the apartment only increased in intensity. She knelt once she reached the small panel beside the door, grabbing a small wrench out of her bag. She unscrewed the bolts that kept the panel glued to the wall and removed it to reveal the wires underneath. She took another tool out of her bag and reached in with it. The security systems here were much like the ones on Alderaan, so Leia knew exactly how to bypass them. Her slender hands grasped the wires and moved them away, revealing the control board. She then got one more thing out of her bag and used it to carefully adjust a small dial on the control board. 

With a soft whoosh, the door opened. Leia quickly copied the access number from the system to a flimsi so that she could later get in without taking the security system apart. She replaced the panel that concealed the wires and stood up, swinging her bag over her shoulder once again.

Leia entered the apartment and the door slid shut quietly behind her.

The halls were eerily silent, the furniture draped in white sheets. The feelings of joy were muted now, and grief and pain permeated the air. A silent wind blew Leia’s hair as she strode into the apartment. She found the living room first, a grand area with a veranda that opened the apartment up to the rest of Coruscant. Leia gently brushed her fingers over the white sheets. She looked towards the dark of the night, or the not-dark, for the night was lit up by the millions of lights of the city-planet.

Leia turned away from the view. She quietly crept through the hallway, the feelings of happiness and sorrow and pain growing as she reached the door at the end of the hall.

The door was ajar.

She pushed it carefully open and walked in.

It was a bedroom.

Wide windows let in the moonlight from the outside, the furniture casting gentle shadows on the floor. Leia let out a breath as she probed the room with the Force. There was happiness here, but it was tainted by pain, a warning of danger. Leia frowned and shuddered slightly, quickly leaving the room and silently deciding not to step in it again. 

She walked about the rest of the apartment, never touching anything, just slightly reaching out with her mind, but at the same time making sure her shields were tighter than they had ever been. 

She’d been seen off Alderaan by Master Yoda. She remembered thinking that while in the old days of the Republic he had been a revered Jedi Master, he now simply looked ancient and tired. Her heart had been filled with a sudden sadness, then, but that sadness had faded just as quickly once the first thwack of the cane had hit her shins. 

_“Hold sadness for me, do not, child,”_ he had said when they first met. _“A certain path, the Force lays for all. This path, mine it is. For you, the path is different. Come, Leia. Teach you of the ancient ways of the Force, I will, and a greater Jedi than even I, you will become.”_

As she stood still within the silent apartment, the sadness returned with full force. Ani had been a Jedi Knight, and while Yoda had been an excellent teacher, she couldn’t deny that sometimes there was a certain air of guilt and defeat that she had sensed about him. Was this what the Jedi had been reduced to? An old troll and a sad, broken man? And her, she supposed. Leia closed her eyes, her chest constricting. What’s done was done; there was no changing the past. 

Master Yoda had stopped her just as she’d stepped onto her shuttle, his wise eyes hinting at danger. He’d warned her to be wary on Coruscant, and once she got there, Leia figured out why. The entire planet was surrounded by a dark veil. In time, Leia grew used to it, but at first it had been disconcerting.

She’d wandered into the kitchen by then. It looked like it used to be well-cared for, but now a layer of dust was thick upon every visible surface. There were two docking stations for droids in the corner of the room. Here, the echoes of feelings were dimmer, as if this room had’t been used often. She looked about in silent curiosity, making sure not to touch anything, as if to touch it would be to shatter the illusion of contentedness that radiated through the apartment in the Force. 

Leia found herself wandering back to the veranda. She stepped forward, and as the wind blew her hair from her face she suddenly saw a yellow starfighter and two people, the taller waving goodbye. When she blinked, however, the scene was gone, leaving her alone in the darkened room. It was only when she raised her hand to brush a few loose strands from her face did she realize she was crying. She frowned, then, unsure, for what reason would she have to cry in the abandoned apartment of a Republic senator who was already long gone?

After that, Leia left quite abruptly, deciding, at least for the moment, that it was best to leave the apartment to the ghosts. However, as she closed the door, she could almost swear that she heard new footsteps. Perhaps the ghosts were truly there, perhaps not, but Leia found that she no longer wanted to spend another second in those rooms. The ghosts would have their peace, and besides, there was no one else that cared about Senator Amidala enough to go stalking through her abandoned home in the middle of the night. 

The ghosts, it would have to be.

**Author's Note:**

> long time no see, friends! i haven't abandoned cloak and dagger, promise. i have a bunch of fics in this verse almost a completion, the hardest part is choosing which to post first, as most of them are out of order and each of them is important to the story.
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed, and if you did then a comment would be greatly appreciated! if you want to read more about the 'verse or yell at me feel free to send me an ask over on [my tumblr](http://skywclkrs.tumblr.com/). thanks for reading :)


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